Blessed Giuseppina Nicoli

Religious Sister of the Daughters of Charity (1863-1921)

Her life

+ Giuseppina was born in Casatisma, Italy, and entered the Daughters of Charity in 1883. Two years later, she was sent to serve on the island of Sardinia; she spent most of the rest of her life ministering there.

+ In 1899, Sister Giuseppina became the director of an orphanage and spent her free time teaching catechism to poor children, the illiterate, and even to the children of wealthy families who often received little or no religious instruction.

+ Whether she was working in provincial leadership, as a nurse caring for wounded soldiers in the First World War, or in her service to poor children, orphans, and the abandoned, she was tireless in her efforts to lift up those in need.

+ Blessed Giuseppina Nicoli died on December 31, 1924, and was beatified in 2008.

For prayer and reflection

God sent his Only Begotten Son into the world,
so that we might have life through him.—Communion antiphon for the Mass of December 31

Spiritual bonus

On December 31, the Church also celebrates the commemoration of Pope Saint Sylvester I. Elected Bishop of Rome in 314, he served the Church during the reign of Constantine (when Christianity was legalized) and he worked to oppose both the Arian heresy and Donatist schism. He died in 334 and he is remembered as the first non-martyr to be honored as a saint in the Western Church.

Prayer

Almighty ever-living God,
who in the Nativity of your Son
established the beginning and fulfillment of all religion,
grant, we pray, that we may be numbered
among those who belong to him,
in whom is the fullness of human salvation.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Collect for the Mass of December 31)